Imagine, you\u2019re in an earthquake zone and you just had an earthquake\u2026 the internet and cell phones are out, power is spotty\u2026 or\u2026 Imagine you live in an hurricane prone area you just had a hurricane roll through\u2026 95% of the cell towers were destroyed, downed trees have knocked out power over a wide area and it\u2019s going to be at least 2 weeks, likely longer, before the power is back\u2026 in either case you have no way of letting friends or family know you\u2019re ok. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This problem could be overcome by amateur radio. Who would you talk to? If you have a specific person you want to talk to verbally, you\u2019d both need to be on the same frequency, it would have to be at the same time with little or no coordination, and band conditions would have to cooperate. If any of these things don\u2019t line up, you fail to get your message out. This is why ham radio operators train\u2026 to know when things are optimal. Having a schedule and a plan makes it easy but you have to have a license to play. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the digital side, if you have a decent radio and a system that runs on batteries like a laptop or tablet, You could send out an email (or text message via email) to family\/friends on the other side of the country via Winlink to let them know you\u2019re ok. Or you could conduct a keyboard-to-keyboard chat on 5 watts JS8 anywhere on the planet highlighted in green or yellow (propagation) on the map below. Propagation changes as the day progresses and is dependent on solar conditions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A feature in JS8Call is that one station to act as a bulletin board or message box on air 24×7. This would allow you to operate without having to have both people on the air at the same time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Winlink is a network of radio message stations that allow you to connect and send email to anyone on the planet (as long as they have email) or even an email to text. Say your brother or sister lives 5 states away and you need to let them know you\u2019re ok\u2026 send a text. It\u2019s easy but you need to practice!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The point, in my mind anyway, is amateur radio isn\u2019t just about firing up a radio and talking to random strangers, although it could just be that. My point is it can be a tool that can be used to keep in touch when there is no other way to communicate over a great distances, Easy to say, hard to do\u2026 THAT takes practice. I invite anyone interested to take the plunge. It\u2019s fun unless you don\u2019t see the challenge as fun\u2026 then it\u2019s boring and that\u2019s a different story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Imagine, you\u2019re in an earthquake zone and you just had an earthquake\u2026 the internet and cell phones are out, power is spotty\u2026 or\u2026 Imagine you live in an hurricane prone area you just had a hurricane roll through\u2026 95% of the cell towers were destroyed, downed trees have knocked out power over a wide area … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/n2xu.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/n2xu.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/n2xu.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/n2xu.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/n2xu.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/n2xu.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176,"href":"https:\/\/n2xu.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions\/176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/n2xu.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/n2xu.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/n2xu.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}